AndyStJ Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 Here is an alternate reality that is insane, but maybe fair. It is also the most metal way to do things. What about a seeded single elimination state tournament? Let every school in every class enter TWO wrestlers, but only one can be seeded. Sectionals: you can handle up to 64 wrestlers in a single-elimination tournament to meet the six match limit. 32 would be a more likely upper limit and would give a max of five matches in a day. One winner per weight class. Everyone else is done. Skip regionals and semistate. State is a 32-man single elimination: reseeded! Two matches day 1, three matches day 2 to get a champion. Or if people are complete wusses, you could take two per sectional and have a 64 man State bracket. Harsh, yes, but to me it seems more fair than our current unseeded partial-knockout, partial consolation bracket system. And way cooler. Yeah, and I guess we could consider class wrestling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 6 minutes ago, Wrestling Scholar said: Just on a side note on Indiana's four stages. It does take a while to complete a state tournament IN. I get it that IHSAA has its traditional format of (sectionals, regionals, semi-state then state which takes four weekends. But Its redundant, takes a lot weigh-ins for the wrestlers and takes a lot effort, manpower and shortens the regular season. It would be nice to compress the format and make more efficient, but never going to see that happen. Ive seen ideas like combining sectionals and regionals. I would just eliminate Semi-State and create something like a Super Sectional to start the postseason with a 32-man bracket. Just spitballing. AndyStJ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galagore Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 Outside the box ideas are great to consider. However, given the history of the IHSAA's approach to all sports' state series, the reality is that they will either do a 2-4 class individual tournament run in a similar format to the one we have now, or they will keep things the same. There is a smaller chance, but still a possibility for us to get sectional-style wrestle backs at every level, but even that is highly unlikely. With the ladies entering the fray in the next year or two, now is the time that we will class, if we ever do. They will make this change across the board in as widely applicable way as possible. This will affect all individual sports not just wrestling. Hypothetically, of course. Coplen187 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 12 minutes ago, AndyStJ said: Here is an alternate reality that is insane, but maybe fair. It is also the most metal way to do things. What about a seeded single elimination state tournament? Let every school in every class enter TWO wrestlers, but only one can be seeded. Sectionals: you can handle up to 64 wrestlers in a single-elimination tournament to meet the six match limit. 32 would be a more likely upper limit and would give a max of five matches in a day. One winner per weight class. Everyone else is done. Skip regionals and semistate. State is a 32-man single elimination: reseeded! Two matches day 1, three matches day 2 to get a champion. Or if people are complete wusses, you could take two per sectional and have a 64 man State bracket. Harsh, yes, but to me it seems more fair than our current unseeded partial-knockout, partial consolation bracket system. And way cooler. Yeah, and I guess we could consider class wrestling. This would be interesting! I’m not opposed to teammates wrestling each other because you see it at the highest level in Freestyle and Greco anyway, and seeding is something I’m always in favor of. Coplen187 and AndyStJ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunDevils Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 (edited) 4 hours ago, M109R said: Wrestling is an individual sport , the size of the school you attend does not matter unless you are talking about Team State Championships . Legitimate question: is wrestling truly an individual sport? Or is it just coincidence that the top-talent chooses to go to Iowa, Penn State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Michigan, and Cornell to have the best training partners and increase their odds for success. If it were truly an individual sport then in theory if you are "that dude" you can lace em' up anywhere and win the state title or national title - and some guys did (i.e. Mason Parris). It seems obvious, and 100% reasonable, that the top talent wants to be an a place to maximize their potential and being surrounded by the right team and coaches allows for it - iron sharpens iron. Unfortunately, it is negatively impacting smaller schools with less resources. JV wrestlers at Brownsburg, Avon, EMD, Penn, Perry Meridian, Belmont, Center Grove, Crown Point, Portage, Merrillville, Lawrence North, Cathedral, and so on (throughout various points in their schools history the last 25 years) have been able to compete when called upon because of getting beat up in practice by their state ranked partner(s). A benefit small school athletes do not have. Edited January 8 by SunDevils ghughes1974, blueandgold, MatTime and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 3 minutes ago, SunDevils said: Legitimate question: is wrestling truly an individual sport? Or is it just coincidence that the top-talent chooses to go to Iowa, Penn State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Michigan, and Cornell to have the best training partners and increase their odds for success. If it were truly an individual sport then in theory if you are "that dude" you can lace em' up anywhere and win the state title or national title - and some guys did (i.e. Mason Parris). It seems obvious, and 100% reasonable, that the top talent wants to be an a place to maximize their potential and being surrounded by the right team and coaches allows for it - iron sharpens iron. Unfortunately, it is negatively impacting smaller schools with less resources. JV wrestlers at Brownsburg, Avon, EMD, Penn, Perry Meridian, Belmont, Center Grove, Crown Point, Portage, Merrillville, Lawrence North, Cathedral, and so on (throughout various points in their schools history the last 25 years) have been able to compete when called upon because of getting beat up in practice by their state ranked partner(s). A benefit small school athletes do not have. I was at a school with so much depth that we fielded a JV team that was winning varsity tournaments and called them "Varsity 2" back in the 2012-13 season, a trend that has continued to this day. Small schools can't do that, and it's unfortunate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 If the IHSAA were to revamp its current model to properly accommodate all of the happenings in our wrestling ecosystem to create more parity, here's what I would be interested in seeing: Two Classes: AA and AAA AA 1A/2A schools AAA 3A/4A schools Three-Stage State Tournament Series Sectional, Regional, State Sectional: The sixteen existing sectionals are cut in half with eight to go to each class; the top four finishers advance to the regional into a 32-man bracket. Regional: The eight existing regions are cut in half with four to go to each class; the top six finishers advance to the state finals in a 24-man bracket. State: Regional finalists receive a first-round bye, with Regional 3rd-6th place finishers wrestling first round. Full consolation rounds to ensure that the eighth place finisher has to win more than one match to be on the podium. Finals contested simultaneously on two mats for both classes, or they can follow PA and do AA finals earlier in the day, while AAA finals are later in the evening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 8 minutes ago, blueandgold said: I was at a school with so much depth that we fielded a JV team that was winning varsity tournaments and called them "Varsity 2" back in the 2012-13 season, a trend that has continued to this day. Small schools can't do that, and it's unfortunate. The V2 thing is why teams keep reloading as much as they do. Their backups can get 20 varsity level matches and keep improving instead of being regulated to JV tournaments. I remember when the PM backup pinned a returning state champ. This only deepens the divide from the haves and have-nots in wrestling. Coplen187 and AJ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 1 minute ago, blueandgold said: If the IHSAA were to revamp its current model to properly accommodate all of the happenings in our wrestling ecosystem to create more parity, here's what I would be interested in seeing: Two Classes: AA and AAA AA 1A/2A schools AAA 3A/4A schools Three-Stage State Tournament Series Sectional, Regional, State Sectional: The sixteen existing sectionals are cut in half with eight to go to each class; the top four finishers advance to the regional into a 32-man bracket. Regional: The eight existing regions are cut in half with four to go to each class; the top six finishers advance to the state finals in a 24-man bracket. State: Regional finalists receive a first-round bye, with Regional 3rd-6th place finishers wrestling first round. Full consolation rounds to ensure that the eighth place finisher has to win more than one match to be on the podium. Finals contested simultaneously on two mats for both classes, or they can follow PA and do AA finals earlier in the day, while AAA finals are later in the evening. Two classes is likely the best way to go. However, with the drastic difference in school sizes the normal 50/50 cut is at around 700 students, meaning 0-700 students is 1A and 701+ is 2A. In all honesty the cut-off needs to be something like 1000 students. bwoodjc89 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 4 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said: The V2 thing is why teams keep reloading as much as they do. Their backups can get 20 varsity level matches and keep improving instead of being regulated to JV tournaments. I remember when the PM backup pinned a returning state champ. This only deepens the divide from the haves and have-nots in wrestling. Oh, yeah. I remember it too. We were beyond excited because he was only a sophomore too, but now being on the outside and getting a different view, it shows how much the little guy is disadvantaged, and if I were still competing I’d trade single class for classing in a heartbeat if it meant more teams got a fair chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 4 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said: Two classes is likely the best way to go. However, with the drastic difference in school sizes the normal 50/50 cut is at around 700 students, meaning 0-700 students is 1A and 701+ is 2A. In all honesty the cut-off needs to be something like 1000 students. So, if the cut was at 1000, would that mean AA would be like 1A, 2A, and 3A and AAA would be 4A? My bad, you might have to explain it to me like I’m dumb because I’m not familiar with enrollment numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 The question should be why does Faulkens and the IHSAA not want to class wrestling, or other individual sports? We all know reasons why coaches and fans are opposed, but why is our organization so adamantly opposed to change in our sport? They have no problem changing basketball and football. AndyStJ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIACfan Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 4 hours ago, Y2CJ41 said: Then it is just a coincidence that less than 10% of the state qualifiers come from the smallest 100ish schools? They just don't work hard enough I guess. Let's see, I'm guessing the next statement will include the two words "Mater Dei" in it. The numbers you yourself have supplied in the past have shown that the number of State qualifiers & Champs has closely followed the percentages of the respective enrollments. That is what should be expected. To expect small schools to produce the same number of elite athletes as the larger schools is nonsensical. A school with 1,000 students should be expected to produce 10 times the elite athletes that a school with 100 students does. That is why large schools have a distinct advantage in team sports. If you want to argue that class wrestling will help grow the sport then OK. I'm not sure it will but I can at least understand why it might. But when you argue that individuals from large schools have an advantage over individuals from small schools, there is no logic or evidence that supports it. Silence Dogood 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIACfan Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 21 hours ago, blueandgold said: DISCLAIMER: I am not arguing for or against class wrestling, this is just a general question. The point I’m making is that multiple classes in Illinois didn’t make the in-state competition weaker overall, in fact, they got better and outperformed everyone nationally and remain relevant to the national wrestling scene. In addition, Michigan has four divisions, allows teammates to wrestle one another in the postseason, and are consistently better than Indiana, along with Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Why are you sure "they got better"? Is it not possible that those programs would be just as tough if Illinois had single class wrestling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyStJ Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 I have said this before, but wrestling is completely different from other individual sports like track or golf. In track, you can practice the high jump, or shotput, or 400m perfectly well without a high level partner. Golfers spent inordinate amounts of time on individual skills like putting, chipping and driving. It is literally impossible to improve much at wrestling without a practice partner near to your size who is at a good enough level. A few small schools (Way to go, Rochester!!) get a critical mass, but without it you are in trouble. And outside practices or camps are banned in-season. How do the small schools compete then? ghughes1974, Y2CJ41, blueandgold and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 5 minutes ago, SIACfan said: The numbers you yourself have supplied in the past have shown that the number of State qualifiers & Champs has closely followed the percentages of the respective enrollments. That is what should be expected. To expect small schools to produce the same number of elite athletes as the larger schools is nonsensical. A school with 1,000 students should be expected to produce 10 times the elite athletes that a school with 100 students does. That is why large schools have a distinct advantage in team sports. If you want to argue that class wrestling will help grow the sport then OK. I'm not sure it will but I can at least understand why it might. But when you argue that individuals from large schools have an advantage over individuals from small schools, there is no logic or evidence that supports it. Sectional entries for each team is 14, it is not based on school size where bigger schools get more entries into the state series. How come the 14 wrestlers a small school puts out at sectional are not as likely to qualify for state as the 14 a big school does? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 3 minutes ago, SIACfan said: Why are you sure "they got better"? Is it not possible that those programs would be just as tough if Illinois had single class wrestling? Because they did get better. They got better because they’ve properly presented their depth. Had they not, a whole lot of those teams would get swallowed at Illinois’ sectional level. A 1A team dominating a three-time state and national championship team, who was at one point ranked 12th in the nation, 55-4 is because they created parity and sharpened one another up at each level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 11 minutes ago, SIACfan said: The numbers you yourself have supplied in the past have shown that the number of State qualifiers & Champs has closely followed the percentages of the respective enrollments. That is what should be expected. To expect small schools to produce the same number of elite athletes as the larger schools is nonsensical. A school with 1,000 students should be expected to produce 10 times the elite athletes that a school with 100 students does. That is why large schools have a distinct advantage in team sports. If you want to argue that class wrestling will help grow the sport then OK. I'm not sure it will but I can at least understand why it might. But when you argue that individuals from large schools have an advantage over individuals from small schools, there is no logic or evidence that supports it. You literally just said why. Large schools can produce ten times the amount of elite athletes than a small school can. If a small school wrestler has no one to wrestle with, but a Perry Meridian wrestler has three backups that are all state level, how is that NOT an advantage? Jacob Cottey in 2014 literally had both Ngun Uk and D.J. Brookbank as his backups. Cottey was a three-time qualifier and two-time medalist, while Uk and Brookbank both medaled placing sixth and seventh respectively. You think being 3-4 state qualifiers deep on the depth chart isn’t advantageous against a team like West Central or Churubusco? ghughes1974 and Galagore 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueandgold Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 3 minutes ago, blueandgold said: You literally just said why. Large schools can produce ten times the amount of elite athletes than a small school can. If a small school wrestler has no one to wrestle with, but a Perry Meridian wrestler has three backups that are all state level, how is that NOT an advantage? Jacob Cottey in 2014 literally had both Ngun Uk and D.J. Brookbank as his backups. Cottey was a three-time qualifier and two-time medalist, while Uk and Brookbank both medaled placing sixth and seventh respectively. You think being 3-4 state qualifiers deep on the depth chart isn’t advantageous against a team like West Central or Churubusco? To further my point on this, Sam Tasseff was seventh string between TWO weight classes at Perry Meridian in 2011 and beat a state qualifier from the weekend prior in Mike Ham from Penn to help Perry win the dual 27-22 and push them to win their first state championship. That should never happen on paper, but it does because depth matters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jcjcjc Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 3 hours ago, Galagore said: We really need to think about putting forward a proposal for classing the individual sport in time for the ladies to be sanctioned. You can already sense at the meets that if the smaller schools have a chance to get a qualifier or two, that will really help boost their programs. If we open fully sanctioned and single-class, the small school programs may be over before they start. Right now, a good, hard working female athlete could set a reasonable goal of qualifying for the state finals in a 2 class ladies tournament. Her qualifying signals to other non-basketball athletes that maybe they should give it a shot. Them qualifying and the first girl medaling makes them all think, "Gee, if we got to a camp and recruited some more girls..." and thus the programs start to build. If we go right in single class, then the same schools will do the same things and in ten years we will all be sitting here wondering what we need to do to get ladies interested in wrestling like they were in 2024. We could also create a team state for girls wrestling. Motivating teams to have a full line-ups can increase numbers quickly. I understand that you were talking about state qualifiers, but the girls rankings really show the spread of state champ level talent across the different school sizes, reflective of the boys tournament a generation or so ago. The top ranked girls currently come from a variety of classes, but half come from 2A schools 100: 2A 105: 1A 110: 3A 115: 4A 120: 2A 125: 2A 130: 1A 135: 3A 140: 2A 145: 4A 155: 2A 170: 4A 190: 2A 235: 2A #1 ranked girls 1A: 2 2A: 7 3A; 2 4A: 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIACfan Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 30 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said: Sectional entries for each team is 14, it is not based on school size where bigger schools get more entries into the state series. How come the 14 wrestlers a small school puts out at sectional are not as likely to qualify for state as the 14 a big school does? Because the large school has many more athletes to pull from. That is why large schools have a huge advantage from a team standpoint. But it doesn't keep that small school from producing that one or two really good individuals. Come on Y2, I know you are smart enough to understand the concept. Larger populations are going to produce more elite athletes. So the best 14 wrestlers from a large school normally should form a better team than the best 14 from a small school as long as everything else is equivalent. But coaching, tradition & overall program strength can help some small schools out perform some larger ones. AnonymousLeprechaun0125 and Coplen187 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIACfan Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 54 minutes ago, blueandgold said: You literally just said why. Large schools can produce ten times the amount of elite athletes than a small school can. If a small school wrestler has no one to wrestle with, but a Perry Meridian wrestler has three backups that are all state level, how is that NOT an advantage? Jacob Cottey in 2014 literally had both Ngun Uk and D.J. Brookbank as his backups. Cottey was a three-time qualifier and two-time medalist, while Uk and Brookbank both medaled placing sixth and seventh respectively. You think being 3-4 state qualifiers deep on the depth chart isn’t advantageous against a team like West Central or Churubusco? I get that practice partners do make a difference. But with the presence of elite wrestling clubs & the extensive out of season tournaments that these kids can choose to participate in, kids from small schools have ample opportunities to get better. You don't become a state quality wrestler these days by only wrestling in season. But yes, in season they are limited to the partners they have at their school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 Just now, SIACfan said: Because the large school has many more athletes to pull from. That is why large schools have a huge advantage from a team standpoint. But it doesn't keep that small school from producing that one or two really good individuals. Come on Y2, I know you are smart enough to understand the concept. Larger populations are going to produce more elite athletes. So the best 14 wrestlers from a large school normally should form a better team than the best 14 from a small school as long as everything else is equivalent. But coaching, tradition & overall program strength can help some small schools out perform some larger ones. But isn't that a reason to have classed sports at the high school level? Or is it fine that small schools have little to no individual success in the sport? And while you are correct in state qualifier data is about equal to enrollment, state placers is off by 5% and state champions are off by 10% when looking at 2 classed even split. If you go to a 3 class comparison you have the smallest class 3% lower than enrollment on qualifiers, 6% lower for placers, and 7% lower for state champions. Getting to state is close to what enrollment percentages are, however anything past that it is very much an advantage to being at a big school. Below are some fun stats. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18PWUXrlIjvzl_-I-HaflCB2w-r0a_sTkH-WWOcFKl2g/edit?usp=sharing Thor 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIACfan Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 6 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said: But isn't that a reason to have classed sports at the high school level? Or is it fine that small schools have little to no individual success in the sport? And while you are correct in state qualifier data is about equal to enrollment, state placers is off by 5% and state champions are off by 10% when looking at 2 classed even split. If you go to a 3 class comparison you have the smallest class 3% lower than enrollment on qualifiers, 6% lower for placers, and 7% lower for state champions. Getting to state is close to what enrollment percentages are, however anything past that it is very much an advantage to being at a big school. Below are some fun stats. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18PWUXrlIjvzl_-I-HaflCB2w-r0a_sTkH-WWOcFKl2g/edit?usp=sharing First, you have admitted in the past that you lump MD & Cathedral in the large school category. While it is true that they choose to compete at that level, it is not accurate to include their numbers in the large school category when debating school size verses individual performance. Their wrestlers have to be included in the small school numbers for the study to be accurate in a debate of school size ability to produce elite individuals. Secondly, even with the MD & Cathedral wrestlers included with the big school numbers, those percentages are not that far off what they should be. Based on the numbers in your spread sheet for a 2 class system, small schools should get on average 24.3 placers/year and they got 18.8 on average per year. Likewise, small schools by enrollment % should expect 3.0 Champs/year & got 1.6 on average per year. But if you place the MD wrestlers in their proper small school category, those numbers are going to lineup even closer to the enrollment percentages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrestling Scholar Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 (edited) From a team perspective, we have sculptured a format that supports class wrestling via the team state resulting tournament which is a modest compromise. The IHSAA philosophy is: In individual sports, no matter what size of their school, each contestant has an equal chance of competing against each other. There's some merit to the argument, but also some intangible arguments against it. Thats not the point. But let's be consistent with that philosophy. Why do we not treat all of the individual awards issued by the state in the same manner. For example, in football there's a 5A All-State award, or a 4A All State or 1A ALL State awards etc. Maybe, to be consistent with the way the IHSAA issues awards like track, wrestling, tennis, swimming and golf, there should be just one 1st team QB all-state football instead of 4A all state. Instead of 2nd team 3A 1st baseman, that kid should compete with all of the classes. Each individual football, baseball, softball or basketball player has an equal chance to demonstrate their skills equally and fairly. Just like the wrestler has to demonstrate his skills against all classes, why shouldn't the basketball player be judged against all classes. In no way am i advocating eliminating classes for the team sports, I'm arguing that the individuals should be judged against all contestants and awarded accordingly. That way we would know who the best offensive tackle is, the best center in the state or the best softball pitcher in the state. We don't like indivdiual class awards in Indiana, then why are we still doing it. Edited January 8 by Wrestling Scholar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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